Five Counterfeit APEX Certificates Come to Light in Hong Kong

The following information was provided by the American Philatelic Society and is published here for the benefit of collectors who actively pursue U.S. stamps with accompanying certificates from expertizing services.

Five low-quality counterfeits of American Philatelic Expertizing Service (APEX) certificates accompanied stamps offered to a collector in Hong Kong recently.  The American Philatelic Society learned of the deception from an e-mail sent to APS Deputy Executive Director Ken Martin on December 4, with digital attachments showing the five certificates.

In brief, legitimate APEX certificates:

• Always include two signatures while both styles of the fakes have the same single, illegible signature.
• Never include a catalogue value, as all five of these counterfeits do.
• Have unique numbers no more than six digits long.  Three of the forgeries have seven-digit numbers preceded by "APEX," the other two have eight and nine digit numbers.

Three of the five were printed on 5 1/8 by 7 1/4 inch pale yellow green stock of a type never used by APEX.  Though catalogue values never appear on any authentic APEX certificate, each of these counterfeit certificates lists a grossly exaggerated value for an inaccurately identified, cheap, unused European stamp.  Preceding a bogus Scott value - expressed in "US$" - printed descriptions of all three state, "It is genuine, are mint hinged, un-wmkd, brilliant color, fine condition."  The example shown, misrepresented on the certificate as having a Scott catalogue value of $1,200, is in fact, a 1946 French semipostal (Scott B204) that catalogues 30¢.  All three show dates of "01-03-1983," a form of date never used by APEX.

Figure 1.  Never used by the American Philatelic Expertizing Service, pale yellow forms of this design accompanied three foreign stamps offered for sale at vastly inflated values in Hong Kong recently.  No APEX certificate ever states catalogue value, as this one does, declaring this common 30¢ French stamp to be worth $1,200.  This counterfeit also has a single, illegible signature, whereas authentic APEX certificates are signed twice.

Two certificates mimic the look of APEX certificates in use since 2003.  Both of these lack the photos or computer scans found on genuine APEX certificates, and accompany U.S. stamps in clear mounts with inaccurate, illiterate inscriptions.  One certificate has eight U.S. stamps of five designs mounted on it, including a pair.  Genuine APEX certificates are issued only for a single stamp or other philatelic item.  Again, both have spurious catalogue values.  Genuine certificates show no catalogue values, for the practical reason that such values vary from catalogue to catalogue, and from year to year.

In the example illustrated, an imperforate horizontal line pair of 2-cent Washington stamps is described as "UNITED STATES #499 WASHINGTON TWO CENTS" - unlikely, given that Scott 499 catalogues 35¢.  It then states, "It is genuine imperf are error variety, horizontal pair, rose color, unwmkd, mint never hinged with original gum.  Scott catalogue value US$2,500.00."

In fact, the horizontal pair, imperforate vertically, of the unwatermarked version of this stamp (Scott 499b) catalogues $600.  The two certificates have the same inscriptions at the top as genuine APEX certificates, but only a three-line abbreviation of the seven-line inscription on genuine certificates at the bottom.

Fakes show a solidly inked "apex" in the logo at bottom left, though on genuine certificates "apex" is printed in a varying pattern of fine dots.  Counterfeits also have an overall shaded background design of the word "apex." Genuine certificates use a different security design in the background, which appears only across roughly the top third and the bottom third of the certificate, the middle portion being unprinted.  Both the fake certificates accompanying U.S. stamps are dated "01/03/1988" - impossible on the new-style APEX certificates, which weren't introduced until 2003.  Finally, the APEX logo and "USA" appear in the center of the bogus embossed 37-millimeter seal on all five of the forgeries.  There is no "USA" in the genuine APEX seal.

Figure 2.  One of two counterfeit certificates offered in Hong Kong accompanying greatly overvalued U.S. stamps, this design more accurately mimics the design of a genuine APEX certificate used since 2003, though it has an impossible date of 1988.  Again, a catalogue value and single signature mark this as a fake.  This one has no photo of the stamp, just a bogus seal with "USA" in it at the foot of the forgery.  Also, the "apex" background design and logo aren't the design and logo used on authentic certificates.

APEX takes any attempt to counterfeit its certificates with the utmost concern.  These five forged documents represent a minimal threat to collectors in the United States.  Collectors who feel they may have acquired material with a counterfeit certificate are urged to check its characteristics against those described here.  Contact APEX with the number and date of any APEX certificate for verification by comparison with APEX records.

Since 1903, APEX has encouraged the expertizing of philatelic material to safeguard the integrity of the hobby, not only for the collector of today, but also for the benefit of future owners.  More than a century and over 174,000 items later, that protection continues.

Today, utilizing the services of more than 40 specialist-experts, its own on-site high-tech equipment and an ever-growing reference collection of worldwide stamps, fakes and forgeries, APEX offers state-of-the-art opinions on the genuineness of philatelic material at moderate cost.  APEX relies on the largest pool of philatelic expertise available, a vast team of highly qualified specialists, collectors, authors, exhibitors and dealers, located throughout the United States and in several other countries as well, overseen by Director of Expertizing Mercer Bristow, an APS staff veteran of more than 25 years experience.